


without you

by thepensword



Series: de la lune [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: ....kinda, Gen, Panic Attacks, character piece, it like kinda sorta fits the piece i guess, lets play How Many Different Ways Can I Project On Lucretia, poetic intentional non-use of capitalization, thats the entire inspiration for the title, written with 'without you' by leslie odom jr playing on repeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: lucretia is a prisoner inside the bars of her ribcage.





	without you

**Author's Note:**

> tw: panic attack
> 
> this is barely edited i apologize.

lucretia is a prisoner inside the bars of her ribcage.

it is tight before she lays down to bed; it is a pressure on her sternum. she squirms and stretches and does her best to ignore it. she doesn’t sleep enough, she knows this, so random discomforts are not unusual. she turns the next page of her book. the hero of it is in a perilous situation, faced off against his foil; he is saved by the woman he has just met, who will be at his side for the rest of his story. he clutches at his bleeding chest and lucretia’s lips twist as she is reminded of the pressure in her own sternum. 

she has read this book before. she closes it and shifts again. perhaps it is best she sleeps off this discomfort. she turns out the light.

the bed is not comfortable. the pressure is constant but not building; it is about an hour later that, perhaps for no reason, it becomes unbearable. she sits upright in bed like a shot and clutches at her chest—she can’t breathe.

_ calm down _ , whisper the purple shadows of her room. lucretia reaches out for someone, anyone, but oh, that’s right—she’s alone. there was a time when she would have padded on sock-covered feet to just the next room, to magnus or merle or davenport or any of the others, but they’re gone now, in so many different meanings of the word, and there is no one on this gods-forsaken moonbase that she can wake for help.

lucretia is a live-wire. her shoulders are tense like a crisp board of cracking wood, her jaw coiled tight like a spring wound and wound and wound and never released. she can’t breathe. why can’t she breathe? why is her chest so tight? why does her sternum hurt? is she dying?

lucretia surges out of bed and rushes to the bathroom. she turns the tap on and frantically gulps cold water from between cupped hands. it calms for the moment of its swallowing but it provides no other relief. she stumbles back to bed and turns on the light, stares at the ceiling—oh, god, her leg is itchy, it’s on  _ fire,  _ is she having an allergic reaction to something? maybe she really is dying. maybe she should go wake someone up anyway. maybe davenport—

davenport would not know what to do. he would only be upset. lucretia collapses back against her pillows and stares at the patterns of yellow lamplight against dark blue shadows, like the vibrant strokes of an oil painting. she breathes too quickly and too shallowly and wishes her gears would just work in unison. she’s technically healthy, she knows, she’s checked—she feels like she’s a bag of mismatched parts, all tossed together and only imitating functionality. it feels like every day, some new piece breaks, and stays broken. her back. her knees. her ankles.

her sternum. why is her sternum so tight? is she dying? she thinks she’s hyperventilating, and distantly lucretia knows that’s bad. she thinks back to the three cups of coffee she had earlier—a mistake, it’s always a mistake, the caffeine is so, so bad for her mental health she  _ knows  _ this but she doesn’t sleep enough, there’s so much to do, no time to sleep, she’d needed the caffeine just to keep going—

lucretia rises from her bed. she digs into the bottom drawer of her bedstand and pulls out a palm-sized metal box. she turns it over and there are the deep-set blue runes—she murmurs a command word to it and the runes light up, and as they do, the soft tones of jazz music fill the room. the singer is long gone, somewhere deep within the hunger, but his voice is preserved here, rich and smooth and gentle. lucretia clutches the box to her chest as she sinks back into her bed and closes her eyes.

her breathing eases. her chest is still tight, her body still that coiled spring, but it’s better. the sense of urgency is gone. she thinks perhaps, if she tried, she could sleep, but she doesn’t want to. she’s afraid if she turns out the light or turns off the music, the terror will come back.

she should make tea, or draw, or...something. she doesn’t have the energy. she’s caught in stasis, bag of parts lucretia in her oil-painting room, all alone but for the music of a forgotten world. she is caught. she almost laughs at that realization, but doesn’t because she’s still hurting too much—it’s funny, is all, in a horrible sort of way. everything she does feels like getting caught. rock and a hard place, right? that’s how she got here. even breaking out of the stasis of the century didn’t break her out of being caught. 

she should...she should sleep. she thinks perhaps she could. she doesn’t want to—she does want to, she’s so tired—she doesn’t want to. she can’t. she could. no.

she’s stuck.

it’s 4 in the morning.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this isn’t really about lucretia


End file.
